Our Media production is the beginning of a Psycological thriller. To do this we have to accurately analyse and portray the micro elements of Mise-en-Scene, For Example:-
-Lighting
-Editing
-Cinematography
-Sound

Despite being unable to put our film on youtube/facebook, we gained enough feedback from classmates who watched our film.Most of our target audience found our film to be confusing and did not understand some of the scenes, for example, 'going into the church' But if the audience was to watch the whole film if we were to produce it, they would later discover that ben went to the church to find guidance for what he should do next, by visiting his sisters grave, who is seen dying in one of the flashback scenes.Also despite them not understanding the role of the church they still found the location to be effective in creating meaning to the film even though it was the more confusing piece of the sequence.Another point brought out in the feedback was the fact we had too many long shots, but this was only due to the fact most of our scenes were running and it was very difficult to get a good close up.

Thursday, 15 April 2010

Today our group presented our presentation to the class, this enabled us to discuss issues and explain our idea in more depth to the class and possible audiences. although chris was unable to attend due to a trip to the opticions, the group pulled through well. We discussed the audience type our film would be most appealing too as well as the inspiration we got from researching other movies.But we were missing one or two things such as health and safety but later added them in.We hope to have it up on the blog soon along with out movie..

Wednesday, 14 April 2010

I would also like to bring up the following addressed issue we've had.The colour playful background of the blog represents the characteristics of our team members personalities rather than the characteristics of the film.This is because all the other groups would have made theirs dark and spooky and pretty much the same colour, where as we wanted to make ours look different from the rest and stand out more :)!

After finally completing the filming and editing process, I can not deny the fact I generally don't like the idea we did. Some people have said they don't understand whats happening and after taking this into consideration and watching it a few more times, I have began to see where they are coming from. I feel if we had a little bit more time, we could have maybe added the actual escaping from the mental buliding as well as the detective at the end throwing a bloody tea cloth into a dupster to prove he was involved somehow but Despite that, I feel the team did so well in the short amount of time we had after all the confusion and the changing of ideas half way through the process.Although the general idea is slightly shabby, I feel the editing, camera work and acting were all very successful! as well as the great directing we needed in order to keep us going and in the end, with the idea we have still managed to make something as good as it is, out of almost nothing. This really showed how well the team developed and how hard we all worked as the task easily became more and more difficult.

The editing process was easily the best part for me, as half way through filming I decided I didnt like the idea, but had to continue with it as time was not on our side. But the editing allowed me to play about with all the shots we had taken and to make it into something better than I expected if im honest. The sound troubles we had with wind were easy to remove and adding a thriller type music in the background really brought out the genre of the film. Also changing the contrast and lighting of all the shots allowed us to make a darker atmosphere.

I have now seen the film after the editing process. After viewing the final project i beleive its a good project. We have now cleared up the sound issues which Jazz talked about in a previous post, there was alot of wind but this has been cleared up by the music which we have used. We have decieded to go with a males scream and not a females as we originaly said we where going to do, we have done this because it goes with the music which we have selected

The Accused has only been possible because of the editing done. Jazz has done a great job as the lead editor, and Chris and Ben have helped her well. The ideas that the group have had have allowed us to come up with a good film.

The sound and editing techniques used have been great, and the finished product looks nice - we just have to decide whether a girl's scream would be better than a man's one, but I think it's great how it is now :)

Although the film is basically finished now, we did have some troubles at the start with the weather and locations.

Early on we decided that we'd film outside the church (which you can see in the photos) and we did all we could in two lessons. However, for the next couple of weeks, the snow hit and we couldn't film anything because of the continuity errors that would have arisen. We had to wait for the snow - which was also a good thing because we talked about the film more, and went into more depth, allowing us to make a better plot and think about the direction of the film. From them discussions we decided that we should change what we were doing.

Chris, Jazz and Ben brought in the options of a murder or death in the church, and we decided that Ben should emerge from said church in a bloodied shirt, and run away, with a detective using his phone to confirm with the line "It's done". This leaves the audience wondering whether Ben is the killer, or the detective is trying to set him up.

We have approached the micro element of sound mostly in Non-diegetic terms, by adding deep non-diegetic sounds it creates a type of atmosphere common in Psycological thrillers,it adds tension and builds a climax until the non-diegetic scream toward the end of the sequence.

I've had the pleasure of looking at the finished film now...and it looks good! The soundtrack has been added - an eerie collection of sounds - and the scream has been put in too.The brightness of the running scene has been altered so it now has a darker, hazier look, which is brilliant for the genre we're doing.The plot is easily identified throughout, allowing the audience to follow the film and not get lost or wonder what is going on.

Tuesday, 9 March 2010

During the filming, we had a lot of trouble with the wind noise in the background. To get rid of this we had to delete the volume and add natural sounds effects in the background, all easily done. But were still struggling to find the correct backing soundtrack, especially considering the computer were working on supplies no music files unlike the rest. I plan to have a listen to a few things this week and hopefully it will be resolved by next monday.The sound is the most important part of the film in my opinion, and although the edit looks fairly average at the moment, a good suitable soundtrack will change it all completely in a matter of seconds.

Although after all the problems of having to re-think and change our idea, then of course re-filming everything, as well as the troubles and difficulties the bad weather caused us, our film is generally on good track now. There's been a few minor problems along the way and the duration and length of it still worries me slightly. We added two flashbacks, (robyns death and the interrogation between patient and detective) to make our film longer, at first we thought of doing a flashback of how ben escaped, but then decided as a group there was already too much running in the our film.Even with the two flashbacks our film still doesnt hit the recommended 2 minutes in length it should be and although we are running out of time I still feel our group would be able to pull one more thing out the bag as the film lacks what you would call 'a big money' shot. Discussions are taking place...

Adding the flashbacks was not only to make our film longer, it was so we were able to add lighting and sound techniques into our work too. Also to add more close up and other different varieties of shots.Both scenes were done in low key lighting, so that the background was not important, low key lighting also gives us more focus on the main subjects and creates atmosphere in our film. Doing flashbacks also enabled us to experiment with editing techniques, we changed the images to black and white and turned down the brightness and contrast then used cross dissolves to create a dream like edit cut. Having dialogue also allowed us to play around with the sound, we changed the volume dials to make it seem like an echo, that worked well too.

Monday, 8 March 2010

We have targeted the micro elements of Mise-en-Scene in a variety of ways.For example we have targeted our cinematograpy by using good locations to get a variety of shots. One of our locations gave us the abilty to film low angle shots from a distance. This was helpful when considering the amount of shots we had used. Although we did have problems when first capturing our footage as we clearly saw that we had too many "long" shots and not enough close ups. Look at the post for "Variety of Shot" to read more info about this.

We have targeted the micro elements of Mise-en-Scene in a variety of waysfor example we have targeted our Lighting features by entering the recording studio and adding Low Key lighting effects to shots and sequences like Robyn's death.This adds atmosphere to the scene and is commonly used in Psycological Thrillers.For example "Psycho" Alfred Hitchcock 1960 and in more recent times "The Uninvited" The Guard Brothers 2009. Therefore Low Key Lighting can be classed as a "Must have" for Lighting elements in Psycological thrillers.

At the moment we are in the process of editing our film. There is nothing else we need to film, apart from a sign, and we just need to edit it. It is looking good at the moment, and I hope that when we put the sounds on, it will pull the film together and make it good. Ben has done a good job acting, Jazz has been great editing and filming and Chris has kept it all together well.

We have filmed in the tv studio again. In the studio we filmed another flash back of christians (bens) life. In the scene you discover why christian was put in to a mental institute. We where going to add how he escaped from the mental institute but we all thought that there was to much running already in the opening, because of this we decided to film in the tv studio where the lighting and cameras improve how your film looks. In the scene Ben wakes up next to his sister who is dead and is played by Robin Bellingham.

Tuesday, 2 March 2010

After looking at the footage coming together in a whole we've noticed that the amount of long shots vastly outnumbers that of close ups and establishing shots. We have added a larger variety of shots by working in the TV studio and adding flashbacks of "Christian Stonem's" past life. this gave us a chance to use techniques such as panning shots and we got to use lighting and setting techniques to contribute to micro elements which emphasise meaning. We got the close up and reaction shots needed and headed to the editing suite to capture the footage.

Monday, 1 March 2010

After looking at the footage we have got of me(chris) on a bench and bens chase scene, we have discovered that we have not got enough footage. So we have decided to add a new scene. We have now filmed this new scene in the scene there is me and ben , i am now playing a Detective which adds something new to my character on the bench. This new scene adds more depth to are story and also makes the rest of the story make sense it does this because it gives you detail about what ben is ment to of done

We have filmed again outside the church we are still using the chace part of the film which we filmed last week but we have changed the end. We have done this because are other idea was to long and complicated.

Thursday, 28 January 2010

The first day we filmed, turned out to be a waste of time. After watching the footage, our marvellous team member Chris, came up with a new plan. As our original idea was too complicated and too long we decided to make it shorter by changing the ending, but this also meant we had to refilm everything again due to costume problems. We revisited the same locations and shot the same footage again but in the correct costume. We bought a new Tshirt and red paint as we were unable to find fake blood anywhere...and then got to work on our mise en scene! It went well.

Monday, 25 January 2010

This is image of ben in character after the murder. An image we can maybe experiment with as a Possible DVD cover? For the t-shirt we used red paint as fake blood was unavailable anywhere at such short notice.

Monday, 11 January 2010

After we got back and viewed the footage we found that we had no close ups of ben. So we will have to go and do these shots on a different day. We need these shots to show that he is out of breath. But we could not film this today because the snow is causing problems for us. Matt and Jazz cant come in because of snow and also when we filmed last week there was no snow but now there is.

We started filming the opening scene which is the scene when Ben escapes from the mental insitute. We started filming this outside the Parish church we used this location because of the alley ways which are around it also to have the church in the background it gives it a great atmosphere. After filming by the church we have decided that we may use the church as the place where the male and female characters first talk to eachother. This will be a better background story than them just meeting on a bench somewhere.